The Canadian Senate on Tuesday passed a motion to strip the disgraced Nobel laureate and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi of her honourary Canadian citizenship. She is the first person to be stripped of honorary Canadian citizenship for her role in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims.

Canadian Senators unanimously adopted a motion tabled by Independent Senator Ratna Omidvar in the red chamber. Sen. Omidvar, according to CBC News, called it ‘an appropriate message to send to her, Myanmar and to the world.’

He said, “We need to send a strong signal here in Canada and around the world that if you’re an accomplice of a genocide, you are not welcome here. Certainly not as an honorary Canadian citizen.

“Stripping her of her honorary citizenship may not make a tangible difference to her, but it sends an important symbolic message.”

In October last year, Oxford city in United Kingdom had withdrawn the honour it bestowed on Suu Kyi in reaction to her complicity in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims. The ‘Freedom of Oxford’ had been granted to the disgraced Nobel Peace Laureate in 1997 for her “long struggle for democracy” by the Oxford City Council.

A damning report by the UN last month had said that the top military officials in Myanmar must be investigated for genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

The UN report added that the Burmese army’s actions were “consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats.” The state-sponsored genocide by the army in Myanmar with the support of its ruler and disgraced Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, led to the murders of thousands of Rohingya Muslims. The violence also forced more than 7,00,000 Muslims to leave the country for the neighbouring Bangladesh and India.

While sharply condemning the role of Suu Kyi, the report also named six top military officials, who it said should go on trial. The report quoted a victim as saying, “In Rakhine State, Muslims are like in a cage, they cannot travel outside. There are no human rights for the Muslims of Rakhine. I don’t know why God sent us there.”

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